It is a truth universally acknowledged that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred from one form to another. Water into steam, electricity into illumination, fuel into movement. Art is not 'useful'. It cannot carry shopping home or take the dog for a walk. You cannot eat art (usually), or expect for it to keep you warm, so how (in a world of death, war, destruction and poverty) can it possibly be practically valued? I was recently required to value a piece of my work and have found this a more introspective and difficult exercise than actually creating the said piece of work. It wasn't created as a commission, the bread and butter of all artists, those pieces which don't require much of us other than our time, skill and materials. Those pieces are easily quantifiable, they are valued by units of time and cost. This was a piece I wanted to be seen, but not necessarily bought. Who would want to? I didn't create it for them...or for me really, it just came into existence as real art should. It was born through necessity and urge and once i'd purged myself of it, it existed. It just exists. Like air just exists. How do I put a price on that? I'm not famous, or 'known'. That, I could quantify. The piece isn't pretty, beauty can also have it's quantifiable price. I only want to price it in a very practical sense, like a commission, on materials and time, but why? Do I think so little of myself that my imagination, emotion, nerves, angst, love and essentially, energy transferred into the piece are worth naught? The answer to that is yes. I do. This is a problem. Other people value their work, as themselves, quite highly. I do not. The fact is that I regard my completed work as myself, in low regard, dislike it intensely once completed and therefore price it as such and not only that, I regard those who would wish to own it with strange curiosity too. (commissions aside) This has led me to think I should probably seek some sort of therapy. I won't of course, it would reason the artist right out of me, There is a very real difference between value and price. So, as the piece now exists, the only answer is that it should be free to be seen by all those who can't afford it, and very expensive to the man who wishes to possess it all for himself.